All posts tagged ‘lecture’

The American Museum of Natural History lecture series presents Mark Van Stone, author of 2012: Science and Prophecy of the Ancient Maya. He will be discussing the truth behind the cataclysmic rumors and unlocking the secrets of the complex Mayan calendar.

Van Stone left his job as a physicist to pursue a carrier as a calligrapher and a carver. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship which took him around the world where he studied manuscripts and inscriptions from many different nations. Of all the calligraphic styles he studied, Van Stone chose to focus on the Mayan, which is the most complex and least understood hieroglyphics. He spent the last several years decoding the Mayan calendar and what it really says about the year 2012.

Join Van Stone at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City on Wednesday, October 10th at 6:30 PM. The lecture will be held in the Hayden Planetarium Space Theater. For more information and to order advance tickets check the 2012 and the Maya:It’s Not the End of the World page. For more information about Mark Van Stone you can check out his web site.

Traditional lecture formats are a staple for modern education (Source: Andrew Scott, on Flickr)

Eric Mazur is a professor of physics at Harvard. Like many successful academics, he was trained to teach in the same way he learned — standing in front of a room filled with students and lecturing them on the fundamentals of Newtonian mechanics (among other things). If his course evaluations and lack of empty seats are an indication, Mazur is apparently quite good at this.

The lecture is an old form of education. In the days before printing, it arose as a means of mass producing books. One person would read a master copy, and others would write what they heard. In the digital age, however, we are a couple major technological paradigm shifts from that being an efficient way to disseminate information. Arguably, it was never the best way to learn.